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June 15, 2009

Full Review of Ancestral Shadows by Russell Kirk

Russell
Kirk gained fame with conservatives as the man who gave intellectual
credibility to a movement in retreat with his tour de force The Conservative
Mind. In that book, he demonstrated that conservatism had
a proud pedigree and a powerful philosophical tradition during a time
when many doubted whether it was anything more than an irritable gesture
of retrograde minds.

In
the wake of the book’s publication, the Michigan State professor became
a staple of the many young institutions of the right as they were born
in the second half of the 20th century. Kirk was one
of the original contributors to National Review and the founder
of the journal Modern Age (still being published by the Intercollegiate
Studies Institute). His writing and lecturing eventually occupied
all of his time. He left the university and wrote a series of
conservative classics from his much loved “spooky house” in Michigan’s
stump country. My own favorite is The Roots of American Order
which is a near must-read for anyone interested in the sources of the
American liberty which now appears to have saved the world from “scientific”
totalitarianism in the last 100 years.

This
Kirk, the conservative intellectual, is well known. What is less
well known about Russell Kirk is that he was also a prolific writer
of ghost stories. The volume under review, Ancestral Shadows,
contains19 tales which originally appeared in magazines like Fantasy
and Science Fiction, London Mystery Magazine, The Critic,
World Review, Frights, Dark Forces, Whispers,
and New Terrors. Readers who try this book will find that
Russell Kirk, like Walker Percy, G.K. Chesterton, and George Orwell
was one of those rare talents capable of walking on both sides of the
literary fence between fiction and non-fiction.

I
recall once reading a single line from an Ernest Hemingway story that
compelled me to seek out the complete work. It was a story about
the crucifixion of Christ. The single line was uttered by a Roman
soldier after a grisly day’s work. “He was pretty good in
there today,” the soldier said, referring to Jesus. You read
that and you must know more.

Ancestral
Shadows has several lines of like quality in store for the reader.
The story “The Invasion of the Church of the Holy Ghost” offers
a stirring example. The self-identified “shiny black” Jamaican
doctor of divinity and Episcopal priest Raymond Thomas Montrose is the
faithful tenant of a great old (and now nearly abandoned church) in
a decaying city. He saves those he can (primarily prostitutes
he is able to spirit away to more wholesome places) and knows that his
parish would likely be shut down by his ultra-liberal bishop if not
for the blessing of his very dark skin. The occasion of the stirring
sentence is that his church is invaded by a rough man seeking to rape
an innocent and uncommonly beautiful young woman who has come under
the care of Dr. Montrose. Montrose, however, is more formidable
than he appears. Considering the advance of the intruder, he notes
with determination, “If we poor feeble sinners – of whom I am the
chief – are engaged in a holy war against the forces of Satan, we
ought to ensure that not all of the casualties fall on our side.”
There is much more to the story than that, but the reader’s mind already
has what it needs to create interest.

The
collection nicely divides into certain themes. The one I’ve
seen other conservatives mention is Kirk’s animosity toward the ever-expanding
reach of the great technocrats hoping to do away with old and organic
“inefficiencies” in favor of the newer, the better, and what’s
next. Certainly, that theme is evident in the collection.
The first tale revolves around the determination of a coolly rational
urban planner who understands little of the needs of real human beings.
Planning officer “Mr. S.G.W. Barner” insensitively plagues the otherwise
happy existence of an isolated elderly woman until he discovers that
Shakespeare’s declaration “that there are more things in heaven
and earth . . . than are dreamt of in your philosophy” has a dark
side. Likewise, the ultra-aggressive Special Interviewer for the
rural census Cribben breaks down the privacy of simple people until
he goes too far by insisting on a Sunday visit to do business with a
family possessed of pronounced hermitic tendencies. He comes to
understand, tragically, that sometimes people keep to themselves for
good reason.

But
there is more to Ancestral Shadows than the kind of work that
would have readily identified Kirk as a “Crunchy Con” long before
Rod Dreher coined the term. The author is clearly concerned with the
spiritual implications of crime. In “Uncle Isaiah” Daniel
Kinnaird, a proud man from a family with a lost fortune, is barely surviving
with a cleaning business in a declining part of town. He and his
employees do good work despite their constantly declining profits.
When a local criminal buys his way out of jail and seeks to replenish
his coffers through intimidation, Kinnaird is a target seemingly destined
to pay protection money lest he get a cement block through his plate
glass window. Everyone tells him to pay unless he knows someone
“tough”. Kinnaird happens to know a person who meets that
description in an unorthodox fashion. His tormentor, the menacing
“Costa”, experiences an unanticipated reckoning. Here we have
a recurring theme of the best ghost stories, whether by Kirk or others,
which is that we live in a moral universe and that justice will eventually
have its terrible due.

While
it is chilling to read tales of evil men receiving the penalty for their
transgressions, the best parts of the collection focus on those who
have repented of their wrongs and are striving toward God. In
return, they earn a chance at redemption. Eddie Mahaffy wakes
from a brutal prison beating to find himself uniquely in the service
of the Lord outside the penitentiary walls. The cowardly giant
Frank Sarsfield wanders his whole life, pilfering church poorboxes and
surrendering or backing out of fights, only to walk into the opportunity
to become a brave man and maybe take “Heaven by storm.” Sarsfield
is one of three characters to appear in more than one story. In
a second appearance, he visits an old priest who showed him mercy and
kindness despite his unworthiness and offers an unusual and precious
method of repaying his debt. The retired soldier Ralph Bain with
his head still soft from a war wound and his small pension offers his
strong arms and lovesick heart to a traumatized young widow who will
never have him in an act of redemptive service. We meet him again
in a strangely pleasant old English bar and hotel where he counsels
another half-lost soul somewhere between suicide and starting over.

The
reader will also have the opportunity to meet Manfred Arcane, a character
who could easily have served as the model for the current series of
television commercials about “The Most Interesting Man in the World”.
Arcane is a powerful “minister without portfolio” in a small, oil-rich
Muslim nation behind the Iron Curtain. He holds his lofty post
despite being both a Christian and a capitalist (rumored to receive
a 2% royalty on each barrel of oil) because of his great talents and
charisma. Arcane is a storyteller and a supernaturalist constantly
aware of his own potential for evil. In one tale, he seeks out
a Midwestern tourist couple just so he can experience their ordinariness
and uncomplicated decency. They are delightfully “centric”
he notes (rather than eccentric). Though the wife is completely
won over by his exotic charms, he treats her like a daughter and is
respectful of her husband, a young American judge.

I
strongly recommend Ancestral Shadows. Russell Kirk is an
imaginative writer capable of evoking both strong emotion and spiritual
reflection. Pick the book up and don’t stop until the end.
Many of the best stories are in the second half. The arrangement
of the stories leads to simple satisfaction and heightened interest
early on followed by delight and perhaps a little awe by the finish.
Some of these tales will survive for a very long time.

As I've posted elsewhere, my two favorites are tales that seem to me to represent two sides of redemption: "Lex Talionis", in which Eddie Mahaffey is the instrument of Butte's damnation, and "Saviourgate", where Ralph Bain and other characters are actors in Mark's salvation. The twists at the end of each story call up completely opposite but appropriate reactions. "Lex Talionis" sends a shiver down the spine; "Saviourgate" moves to tears.

'As a lover of ghost stories, I rate Kirk's as some of the best ever."

Yes, if the Edwardian era is seen as the golden age of the ghost story, Kirk managed to carry aspects of that age forward in time, while at the same time enriching those aspects by his infusion of a strong moral sense. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that what Kirk did with the ghost story is not unlike what Flannery O'Connor did with the literary short story, or what P.D. James has done with the mystery novel.